The Path of Duty, and Other Stories eBook

trust. Of my own sorrow I will not now speak;
the only thought which afforded me the least consolation
was—­that what was my loss, was her eternal
gain. About a year after the death of my mother
my husband formed the idea of going to America.
He had little difficulty in gaining my consent to
accompany him. Had my mother still lived the case
would have been very different; as it was, I had no
remaining tie to bind me to Scotland, and wherever
he deemed it for the best to go, I felt willing to
accompany him, for he was my all in the wide world.
We left the British shores on the tenth of June, and
after a prosperous voyage, we found ourselves safely
landed in the city of Boston. We brought with
us money sufficient to secure us from want for a time,
and my husband soon began to acquire quite a lucrative
practice in his profession, and our prospects for the
future seemed bright. For a long time my spirits
were weighed down by home-sickness. I felt an
intense desire to return to the home we had left beyond
the sea, but in time this feeling wore away, and I
began to feel interested in our new home, which appeared
likely to be a permanent one. When we had resided
for a little more than a year in our adopted country,
my little Ernest was born, and the lovely babe, with
my additional cares, doubly reconciled me to my new
home. When my little boy was about a year old
I was attacked by a contagious fever, which at that
time prevailed in the city. By this fever I was
brought very near to death. I was delirious most
of the time, and was thereby spared the sorrow of
knowing that my child was consigned to the care of
strangers. But the fever at length ran its course,
and I began slowly to recover. But just when
I was considered sufficiently strong to be again allowed
the care of my child, my husband was prostrated by
the same disease from which I had just recovered,
and in ten days I was left a widow with my helpless
child. I cannot even now dwell upon this season
of sorrow. All my former trials appeared as nothing
when compared with this. Had it not been for
my boy I could almost have wished I had not been spared
to see this hour, but I banished such thoughts as
wrong and impious, and tried to look the dreary future
calmly in the face. I soon found it necessary
to devise some means of support for myself and child.
I thought of many plans only to discard them as useless.
I once thought of opening a school as my own mother
had done, but the care of my child prevented me from
supporting myself in this way; and I would not consign
him to the care of strangers. I at length decided
to seek to support myself by the use of the needle,
and accordingly rented two rooms on a respectable
street, and removed thither with my child, where, by
the closest industry I succeeded in keeping above
want for more than three years, when my health failed
from too close application to my employment. My
physician strongly advised me to leave the city, as
he thought country air would have a beneficial effect